Fun and Games

"Don't take my picture, Mommy!"

"I will have to tickle you, if you don't cooperate, Alicia."

............

"Ok, you have forced my hand."

*giggles*

"Cramping"

Jamie has completed yet another triathlon. This is NOT a picture of that day. This was one taken on a day that he rode his bike from our town to my inlaw's house. About 35 miles. It was not his best ride. He was suffering from some cramping.
He has just gone to Quebec on a business trip. Too bad he does not speak French. I wish I could go on a trip to Quebec. I think Jamie and I could use a trip away together. Our relationship is suffering from "cramping" too. Too many mundane activities and daily worries cramping us.

The Mohawk Gang

This picture is from a few years ago. Getting a little dated, but I wanted to post it because it makes me happy. Growing up on Mohawk Street was wonderful...(most of the time). These are my sisters and a few "kids" from Mohawk St. Martha even ended up marrying one of the "kids." He was new in the neighborhood during our teens. From left to right: Rachel, me, Ruth, Adam, James, Martha. This was taken at Martha and James' house on the day we celebrated my parent's 50th wedding anniversary!

Good News

The good news is that I have gotten an A in both of the classes I took! Yippee! Other good news is that we are all healthy and happy. We are enjoying our summer so far. Hopefully it won't go by too fast. Here are my kids on my mother-in-law's swing on my inlaw's farm. Note my father-in-law's beloved tractor in the background.

A Pretty View

I thought you might enjoy seeing the view from my inlaw's place. This is their driveway and straight ahead is another of the Finger Lakes. This one is Seneca Lake. There still is a lot of open farm country as you can see. If you go down this driveway and turn right...you will see a farm with a lot of black angus cattle. Down a little more, and you will see a neat and tidy Amish dairy farm. This was taken on Father's Day.
My paper is done and handed in!!!! Yeah!

Heads up!

Thank you for your patience reading my blog while I've been in school. I know not much has been happening on it. The good news is: 6 weeks of classes are done. I am not quite finished with school though because I am still in the process of writing the second paper. In a few days I will be done after I send it electronically to my professor. Then I will be free until the end of August whenI start again. I really enjoyed my classes. I met a lot of wonderful people and will miss seeing them regularly.

This picture doesn't have much to do with grad school, but I thought it was a pretty good representation of keeping my head above water! (even though it is really a picture of Audra)

Out for a Sunday Drive

This afternoon, I saw an Amish buggy coming up our street. I've only seen that one other time in the 8 years we have lived here. Some usually come into town on Saturdays for the farmer's market...but on a Sunday? And on our street? There was a man and a woman. Two little Amish girls in the cart and two boys about 10 or 11 years of age on bicycles. They went slowly by and waved and smiled at us. I waved and smiled back. During the entire thing, my camera was just an arm's length away. I could have gotten a nice shot of all of their smiling faces...but I just couldn't do it. I can't treat them like they are part of an odd exhibit. Allen was sitting next to me. We finally felt comfortable with Allen taking this shot of them from the back after they had passed.

Come on down, Brendan!

Check it out. This is Monday's show. Brendan is my niece's husband.
the price is right You can see my niece, Danielle holding up 2 fingers to advise Brendan to guess on item #2 during one of the games.

Under the Gun!

I'm sorry that I haven't written. I am under the gun here with 2 weeks of grad classes left for this summer session. I have to submit a paper that is almost finished, interview a librarian, write a second paper, and finish designing an html webpage.

I'm really loving it so far. I feel very confident that I am studying the right thing and heading in the right direction. Everyone I have met in my classes is really nice. Since we are all new students, we have become a pretty tight knit group. After dinner yesterday, about 10 of us walked down to these impressive marble columns located on campus. These pilars are from an old building that was taken down in the city of Buffalo. One girl did have a camera and we stood around and posed for pics. (From l-r in this picture: Bridget, Kaitlyn, Josh, Johanna, Jeremy, Libby, Lena, me) It is scary how old I look here!

Picture by Cathy.

March of the Librarians

This is for your own amusement.

A New Computer

With some of my loan money for grad school, I bought a new computer. I've never had a new computer before. All I've ever had are old, hand-me-down computers. Jamie thought I should get a new computer because of the grad work I'm doing. I don't know much about computers except for blogging, e-mails, doing simple web-searches and more recently Facebook. Computers are used a lot in the library industry.

I worked at a public library as a teenager, but back then most of the work was done manually. We still used card-catalogs with drawers and library cards were paper that we typed up and had patrons sign. We stamped things, and put the due dates on cards that were inserted into pockets inside of the books. No bar-codes back then. A lot of cool changes have taken place.

I'm a grad student

I have started grad work this week. So far, so good. I really like the people I've met. I like my professor. He is teaching both of the classes that I am taking. In fact it is almost the same exact students in the 2 classes. We all go to one class, go out to eat together and then come back to the 2nd class. Almost all of us are new students. Several of us commute from Rochester. Three of us are carpooling together. I am definitely an older student...but luckily not alone. There is another girl my age. She's one of my carpooling buddies.

My professor is very entertaining to listen to. I'm glad because it would be a much loooonnnnggggerrrr day if he wasn't. University of Buffalo is very close to the Canadian border. My professor actually lives in Canada and just commutes every day to the USA where his job is. I think that's interesting.

Right now I am working on wrapping my brain around a whole new language of librarianship. There are a lot of unfamiliar words to learn and understand. I've been reading a lot and need to visit a variety of different libraries and talk to librarians. Then I need to write a 5 page paper on something. (to be determined)

I can't wait to do laundry!!!!

This was something that I did not blog about before, but my washing machine busted. I have either been carting my laundry to other places to wash for the past 2 weeks, or been using my broken machine. Last night I did a small load in my broken machine. The spin cycle finally didn't work at all...instead of working somewhat. I could actually ring out the clothes. They took quite a while to dry in my dryer.

Today Jamie and I took Alicia with us to look for a new machine. Luckily, there is a store right around the corner from us. Gudrun, you will be pleased to know that we purchased a Bosch! (Bosch is manufactured in Germany)

They are delivering it on Monday. I can't wait!

Changes

Our crab-apple tree is past it's peak as far as blossoms. I took this picture last week. We are seeing more green on the trees and less pink, white, yellow and purple. The blossoms are beautiful...but I suppose it is necessary for the trees to lose those in order to bear fruit eventually.
Change is in the air. Not only on the trees, but in life. Tomorrow I will go to my orientation for classes at UB and on Tuesday, I will start my first graduate class towards my Master's in Library Science. It is exciting and a little scary.

Thirteen Things About Being a Mother

1. It is a big responsibility.


2. Sometimes it makes you feel like the world is on your shoulders.


3. It can make you laugh.


4. It can embarrass your kids.


5. It can be exasperating.


6. It brings joy.


7. It can bring sorrow too.


8. It gives you a good excuse to act like a kid.


9. It can also force you to be an adult.


10. It can bring you to your knees in prayer.


11. Sometimes it can bring out a fierce protectiveness inside of you.


12. It can also make you tired.


13. It fills my heart with love.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

Little Maestro

Alicia is getting better and better on her viola all the time. This is her first year taking this instrument and I am very pleased with how much she has progressed. She has figured out how to play "Jesus Loves Me" and is planning on playing it for her teacher on Friday. Songs like that are never taught in the public schools. I hope Mr. I is cool about it.

Here to celebrate

We had a few friends come for Alicia's birthday celebration. Everyone loves a party!

Pretty in Pink

I thought I would show you my neighbor's tree today. Isn't it pretty? There are all sorts of flowering trees all over town lately. They flower for such a short time. I'm glad I took this picture before it is too late.

Alicia is 9!

Today is my youngest daughter's birthday. She has turned 9 years old! We love her so much! "Happy Birthday, Lishey!"

Grab a Good Book

Audra has found a new favorite place to read.

Cheery project

Last week when it was warm Audra decided that her stilts needed painting. Alicia helped. I admit that they turned out to be quite cheery. Now I need to get a picture of her walking on them. She's pretty good at it.

Babies!

Mommy and Daddy mourning dove have been very busy caring for 2 babies. Here is Daddy sitting with his youngsters. You can tell it is Daddy and not Mommy by the rosy color around his head and breast. Mommy is more of a tan.

Here are two little tykes looking out at the big new world out there. So far they haven't seen much but my porch. It's new and big to them just the same.

Amazing Transformation!

I don't think I have ever seen the trees bud and blossom as quickly as they have this year. It seems like we have almost literally gone from winter to a very warm and green spring over night. The picture at the left was just taken on March 28th. On that day, Alicia and Caeden donned their snow pants, boots, scarves, heavy coats and mittens to go outside and play.

And here they are today playing outside in shorts less than a month later! The birds are singing. I've seen some babies too. The trees are getting green. The grass is lush. Flowers are beginning to bloom. Best of all, the temperatures are warm warm warm!!!!! I love it! Sherman even went swimming in a pond today. It reminds me of that Bible verse that says "Weeping shall endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Something like that anyway! Not that I was weeping during winter because I do enjoy it. It has it's own special beauty. (Especially when I am looking at it through a picture window holding a hot cup of coffee)
Anyway, I thought I'd share this amazing transformation!

Twiggy

If yesterday was a day of play, then today was a day of work. After a long winter, there is a lot to clean up around the yard. This morning I had the kids outside working. All 4 of us worked to pick up the many twigs that managed to drop from the willow tree during the last 5 months. I was pleased that they all had a pretty good attitude about it. I'm hoping to develop strong work ethics in my kids.
The day turned out to be just gorgeous. High around 65. It didn't start out that way. It was a little crisp when we first started out. As the sun rose higher and our muscles warmed up, we all took off our jackets.

Here you can see...a job well done. Five containers of various sized paked with twigs and branches.

Sherman was out with us for a bit. I let him off the chain. He hangs out for a while...but then manages to sneak off somewhere. Luckily he did not come back needing a bath. But he needed a rest (and to be chained up again).

Spring Break

It is looking greener and greener here in upstate NY. Of course...there are not really any daisies out yet. This picture is from last summer. Since I really didn't have any pictures on my computer that represented what it was like here today, I decided to just go with this one. There is no school this week. My yard and house was filled with kids. I wasn't even babysitting. They just came. It started with my daughter Audra and her friend Jean. They decided that they should organize a neighborhood game of Capture the Flag which would be played in our yard and the next door neighbor's yard. I literally lost count of the number of kids who came by today. It turned out to be a nice opportunity for some new kids to join in the fun. All the kids were running around chasing eachother and trying to locate and capture flags. I noticed a girl standing on the edge of the yard looking at all the action. I could tell she wanted to join in, but seemed shy and unsure about it. I had never seen her before and was about to call Audra's attention to her in order to invite her into the game when Jean noticed her. Jean is very outgoing and didn't hesitate to invite her into the fun. Soon the girl's brother showed up too. They are new kids on the block.

I will have to say that I really enjoyed having the kids here. Everyone got along great. There were no problems at all that I could see. The sun was shining and everyone got plenty of exercise. I'm thinking that some kids are going to be sleeping well tonight.

Sunday Sunny Walk

It has been absolutely gorgeous outside the last few days. The warmth has been to fabulous. This photo was taken on Sunday afternoon. We went out for a walk as a family. So many people were out that we stopped a number of times to visit people we knew either on the side walks or in their yards. I just love this town. Can you tell? I took the two pictures from the previous post on the same walk.

Mystery Solved

I have just deleted my last post because of some inaccuracies. A long time ago while reading an article in a magazine about quilting, I ran across a little information about a girl who lived in this house in the 1850's-60's and whose father was the minister of the Congregational Church here in town. I also remembered that there was mention of a diary. I was interested when Gudl left information about a diary kept by a young girl by the name of Caroline Cowles Richards. I was very excited to learn that her diary is on-line. You can read the entire thing here. (ignore the cover page which is for a different book. Just click on the arrows to turn the pages)

So I began to read the diary and soon discovered what I thought were discrepencies between the diary and what I remembered the magazine article saying. First of all, Caroline's father was not the pastor of this church. In fact, she lived with her grandparents. Her grandfather was the town's banker. Her great-uncle had been the first pastor of the Congregational Church many years earlier, so I chalked that up to what had confused me. But then I was puzzled by things she wrote about her home. She described a wrought iron fence on her property that was quite high with a stone foundation. There is no fence on the property on which this house is located. It didn't seem like such a structure would be taken down. In another entry in the diary, Caroline tells of it raining quite hard. Her grandmother would not allow her and her little sister Anna to walk to church. Instead, they sat in the kitchen with their window opened so they could hear the sermon coming from the Methodist church located next door to their house. Well that settled it. This house was not Caroline's house. How could I have gotten two things wrong that I was sure that I had remembered?

It bugged me enough to stay up late on-line doing research until about 12:30 am this morning...but I solved the mystery. I finally tracked down the original magazine article that I had read. The girl who lived in the house was Susie Daggett. Her father was the pastor of the Congregational Church. She is mentioned many times in Caroline's diary because they were school chums. These two girls, along with a few other girls decided to make quilts together to keep for the day that each of them would marry. In the diary, Susie declares to the other girls that she has decided that she will never marry. The girls come to a concensus that they will make a quilt for her anyway. I could not find a picture of Susie...but I did find one of her father, Rev. Oliver E. Daggett.

Mrs Mourning Dove says "It's spring!"

It is hard to believe that less than a week ago our back yard looked like this. Monday and yesterday the weather was beautiful. Warm and sunny! It was about 60 degrees yesterday morning when I walked the kids to school. Everyone was wearing spring jackets. There are tiny buds on the trees and I saw signs of a few flowers poking through the earth. This morning the temperatures were back down to about freezing and I chose my winter coat again. This is typical NY spring weather. It could snow one day and be 70 degrees the next. As the days go by, the cold will come less and less and it will be warmer and warmer.

We might be confused about whether it is winter or spring around here, but the birds are definitely not confused. They know that it is time to build nests and lay eggs. We have a new little resident on our back porch. Mrs Mourning Dove has taken over an old nest. For several years there were robins in this nest. But last year...it was empty. I missed watching them last year and I am glad to see someone has moved in.

Winter's Last Hurrah

It snowed again overnight. It really is spring here, technically anyways. I have noticed certain kinds of birds are around again. I saw a few robins and a red-winged blackbird. The birds all know it is Spring and they fly back to upstate NY even though it still can get cold and snow. I noticed this morning that this snowfall didn't stop the birds from singing at dawn. I was up early and stepped outside to see the winter wonderland around 6:30 AM and it sounded like spring outside. All the trees looked amazing. I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures after it got a little lighter.

The kids did not have school today because of a superintendent's conference. The girls didn't waste much time going outside with the neighbors to play. Here are Alicia and Caeden in our backyard. They planned on making a snowman..but didn't actually succeed in doing that. Alicia says she gave up because Caeden was too destructive. He couldn't resist demolishing it before it was done. I was watching them through the window gathering snow in the wagon. I think a sled would have been easier. They had fun anyway.

The Locals

Every town has a few locals to add to the flavor of the town. I don't really know who this man is, but I see him everywhere. I have lived in this town for about 15 years and I have seen him off and on for the duration of those years. He is quite elderly and he rides this 3-wheeled bike all the time, in all sorts of weather. I don't know much about him except that he "never drinks alcohol". LOL! I overheard him talking to someone in the Byrn Dairy last summer and I remember him saying that. I didn't know how he would feel about me taking his picture. I took it from a distance and zoomed in and cropped it. When he peddled close by, he looked right into my face and smiled and greeted me. I think he must be in wonderful physical shape for his age.

A Long Shot

There are Amish communities that are near me and also some Mennonite. I've thought about driving out by their homes and taking some pictures...but I really respect their desire for privacy. They don't really like to be oggled at. Who can blame them? That is what is nice about this area. We don't have tourist attractions that call for people to gape at the Amish the way they do in places like Lancaster, PA. Generally they are left alone and once in a while we see them in town. A few weeks ago I saw a horse and buggy tied to a lamp post in the Wal-mart parking lot. I took a great picture with my cell-phone....but I don't have the chord to download it to my computer. Another time I was at the Salvation Army thrift shop and there were two Amish women chatting away in their Pennsylvania Dutch (a form of German). At that point I really wished I knew German. Not because I wanted to be nosy and eavesdrop, but I thought it would be fun to hold up a pair of trousers and say, "How about these? Will these fit Eli?" LOL!

There is an Amish dairy farm down the road from my inlaw's place. I quite often will see a horse and buggy go by the house when I visit. I never happen to have the camera at the right time. Last weekend on the way home from their house we were about to pass a horse and buggy on the road. I just happened to have my camera. It was a long shot (no pun intended) to get the picture. I just pointed my camera towards my window as we were about to pass and pressed the button. Then I checked the results, fully expecting to see blur or just the road or a portion of a horse. To my surprise the picture above was what I found! I was quite pleased.

Houses

I don't really know a lot about the history of many houses here in town. Some of them, I just simply like the looks of. This little house is such a pretty little house. If you click on it to enlarge it, you can see the details of the trim. There are many beautiful houses here in our town. I especially like the victorian houses with the gingerbread trim. Sometimes I walk around and think I'd like to live in a certain house. Then I realise that my house isn't a bad looking little house...it just needs to be fixed up.

I feel very impatient about that because the way my house looks is important to me. Unfortunately, it has peeling asbestos shingles on it right now...in not too attractive of a color. I keep waiting for the day when we can change it and make it look like the cute house that I know it can be. A brick house might be nice because then I wouldn't have to worry about the shingles. Here is a brick house that is only about a block from mine.

Circa 1826

I love houses with history. This one has it. Unfortunately, I can't remember the specific names of the people who used to reside here. Several years ago, I was reading an article about some local history...and it included excerps from a diary kept by a young teenage girl who lived here. There was nothing really remarkable about her life. Her days were rather ordinary, but I was interested just the same. The article was really about quilts in local history. In the diary, the girl (whom I want to call Emily, but I can't remember) was working on a square for a friendship quilt with her school friends. She would talk about walking to a friend's house to work on it. LOL! Can you imagine what a stark contast that makes with today's young teenage girls. (Come to think of it though, we do have a group of young girls who knit together at our church)

Anyway, Emily's father was the pastor of the church pictured at the top of this post. If I ever run across that article again, I will come back and correct or add the names here.

Happy Birthday?

This is just a quick post to explain that I won't be on for a while. My internet is busted. Actually, we still have it on an old lap top....but that keyboard doesn't work very well. I refuse to spend much time on it. I am at my sister-in-law's home right now. Went to a funeral here in town this morning. It is also Allen's 13th birthday. A funeral is not a fun way for anyone to spend their birthday. We are trying to figure out how to salvage the rest of the day and make it somewhat fun for him.

These things happen in life.

A Beautiful Day!!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day here in upstate NY. It was in the mid 60's which is highly unusual for this time of year. I took Sherman for a walk and took my camera along. I took a lot of pictures. Mostly of houses that I thought were pretty. I will show a few to you in the next few days. It was just so wonderful to feel the warmth . I wore a spring jacket and actually felt too warm wearing it. Just two days ago I took a walk and needed to cut my walk short because the wind was just miserable and I was freezing....and now this! And guess what. It is supposed to get all cold and miserable again tomorrow.

I admit that I don't have the same artistic eye as my sister when it comes to using the camera, but I thought these pictures were nice. I've always admired this old wrought iron fence. There is english ivy growing all along it. This of course is a winter picture, so it has all the dried up leaves too. I like it though. The tree in the first picture looks so sunny...giving you an overall feel for the day. You can still see the snow....which was melting quickly. On some parts of my walk, you could hear water running into the streets and in the sewer systems because it was melting so fast.

A white world

It's a white world here. This is when I like the snow best. When it is so fresh and clean and pretty. I especially like it if I can stay home and just be. Whatever I need to do-clean, cook, read, blog, paint...it's perfect. Yesterday I needed to go out and it was a bit scary. I went to a friend's house. She lives way out in the country. Her road had not been plowed at all by the time I left. I had a death grip on the steering wheel and drove about 20 mph all the way down her looooong and windey and hilly road, and turned onto another unplowed road and then I turn onto a half plowed road....one that had been plowed on the opposite side that I was traveling on.Finally I made it to the main road and was happy to see it plowed and in relatively good condition.

It took me much longer to get home and barely made it before the school bus (I saw it rounding the corner as I pulled in the driveway) When I got home I just ached all over. I think it was because I had been so tensed up and stressed out. I was just glad to be home and safe. Somehow I managed to pull off dinner and then I could relax.

This pine tree is in my back yard. It looks very pretty right now.

The New Layout...

I like it. There is only one minor problem. You see the corners of each section? There is a little section that rounds off the corners. It is navy blue....which is the original color of the background that I changed. I would like these corners turned to a redish-purple or a wine color so that it blends with the new background. I haven't figured out how to do that. I know how to remove them entirely so that I have the sharp right angles for corners, but I really like the rounded look. Maybe I can figure it out, but maybe not.

I changed the overall look of my blog with the help of a tutorial on Jenny's blog. You can check that out here . Yesterday I played with another template that I found on this site. They had some interesting templates...but when I tried to work with one, it ended up having a foreign language on the side bar that I couldn't get rid of. It was very frustrating, so I ended up ditching it in favor of one of the templates that you can find here on blogger with that "pick new" tab when you go to layout.

So overall, it is a simple change and not as fancy and personal as some I've seen, but I like it. Sorry Bethany, but this is the one I like. LOL! I needed just a little more pizzaz.

Guests for lunch...

Martha snapped this picture of me making sandwiches for lunch when she came over yesterday. What really makes the picture is Sherman behind me. Always there just in case anything should be dropped!

So Far...

So far I have figured out that I really don't know what I am doing. The backgroud image I copied was very small....thus the patchwork effect. This is not really to my liking. The same thing happened on the "aniquey yellowy part." Patchy patchy patchy!

Nothing worked very well for the header or the sidebars.

Just playing

I have been trying to figure out how people have the coolest blog templates. So I am playing and learning. When you come here for the next several days...you never know what to expect. You will be surprised every time...until I settle on one thing.

This particular design is a bit loud and brash for me, but I also kind of like it. In any case, it is fun to play around and see what I come up with. After I figure it all out, maybe I'll share my newfound knowledge with you. Who knows?

I am becoming bloggly savvy!

Change is in the Air

It has been very warm today. All the snow has melted. It has made it a bit muddy outside....but I know it will snow again and everything will look fresh. Snow is quite ugly when it is melting and all the dirt shows up in it alongside the roads. I've noticed that no one ever takes picturesof ugly snow...just pretty snow that looks like it belongs on a Christmas card or something. Well, why would anyone take a picture of ugly snow?

It is President's Day...and being such, there is no school. In fact, my kids have the entire week off. I had to clean a dentist's office this morning and when I got home I was still in the cleaning mode so I cleaned my house too. It looks pretty good. Some of you have commented on my new blog layout. I needed a change. Something fresh. I was finding that empty swingset to be a bit oppressive. I think I need more change. I'm thinking of rearranging my living room. I have a few ideas. I wish I could afford to buy a new piece of furniture and retire something that I'm sick of. (My house is too small to just add) But I must be creative with what I have for now.

Speaking of change...I'm getting more and more excited about becoming a librarian. My plan is to start my grad work in mid May with 2 courses. I'll be commuting to Buffalo 2 days a week. By then the weather should be nice so the commute won't be bad at all. The first summer session will last about 5 weeks. I think being a librarian will be a great fit for me! I think that Abe and George would be proud of me!

Bundle up!

It's still winter here...although today is a mild 30 degreesF...rather than the 10 degrees it was a few days ago. This is the time of year when I feel like I've had enough and wonder what it would be like to live somewhere where spring comes much earlier. I've been feeling better, although I still have a cough that seems to be lingering on and on. I must get on with my life though.

I roasted a chicken last night for dinner...so I guess I will make Chicken soup tonight. Soup and homemade bread sounds good. What are you having for dinner?